Ground Coffee Wants to Become Coffee Compost

Helping to Make Coffee Compost

I drink about 3 coffees a day, sometimes from an espresso machine and instant if there is nothing else around. Imagine my surprise when I saw a genuine coffee machine in my Swissotel hotel room during a recent trip to Sydney. Just the thing to keep me going in a quiet and peaceful space.

This Nespresso machine was all ready, plugged in and full of water. In the drawer was a selection of coffee pods so I took the orange/brown one and gave it a try. It was a lovely coffee to drink, and then curious to see what become of the grounds, I looked a little closer.

The pod is punctured, and water is forced through the grounds at pressure, so fairly much the same approach as at the cafe. What is different here is the aluminium pod remains, with the rather sad looking coffee grounds trapped within it.

I opened up the pod and on the inside it felt like there was a plastic liner there. For recycling, these pods are not too good, maybe the aluminium would break down over a couple of years, but that plastic is not going to help at all.

There was not much else to do besides leave it in the coffee grounds bin.

Coffee Grounds in Landfill

A few people have made the comment that coffee grounds sent to landfill will break down over time and at least have some impact on all that rubbish. Reflecting on the photo below, which I took the last time the rank wind of a tip was blowing around, the place needs as much help as it can get. Uncooked ground coffee is better in my compost by a good measure.

To the Nespresso coffee pods landfill, waiting so patiently to return to the earth, we salute you.

No I don’t believe the nespresso pods can be put into compost by any normal means. Maybe you could soak them in water to remove the coffee grounds, and then do something with the actual pod like melt them down or whatever it is they do to recycle metal. How about they don’t make them like that in the first place!?